Redding's Turtle Bay will ask for prevailing wage ruling

REDDING — Turtle Bay will ask a judge to stop the state from mandating that workers building its proposed Sheraton hotel be paid prevailing wage.

The park announced at a press conference this morning that it will file a writ in Shasta County Superior Court later this week or early next week.

The move is the latest in an ongoing struggle between Turtle Bay Exploration Park and three unions over wages on its $20-plus million hotel project. The feud has put the fate of the hotel in limbo. Turtle Bay has threatened deep but unspecified cuts to its operations if the hotel can't be built and that revenue is not available to support the park in the future.

In January, the Department of Industrial Relations upheld a union appeal, ruling that the hotel constituted a public project that is subject to prevailing wage. At the heart of the debate is a disagreement over what if any value was provided by taxpayers to Turtle Bay in the form of the long-term lease it signed with the city on its property. The city owns the land but Turtle Bay in the early 1990s acquired a 110-year lease there.